Doodle for Google contest underway

Mike Dutton remembers the first time he got real encouragement from an
art teacher. He was in third grade, and he had made a tiger sculpture.

"It was Mr. Briggs," Dutton, now 35, said, recalling the event as if it
were yesterday. "I made this tiger, and he liked it so much that he lent it to some contest, and it
ended up at an exhibition hall in South Korea. I got this letter from the U.S. ambassador to South
Korea about how much he liked the piece. He said I should be proud of this great opportunity to
have my work displayed.

"I was upset at the time. I just wanted to know when I was going to get
my sculpture back!"

Dutton is now an artist for Google, the giant search engine company based
in California, and today he understands what the experience really meant.

"I realized there was actually an audience for art," he says. "I think
that’s something I’ve carried with me through my artistic career — that feeling that art is a form
of communication. There is this dialogue between you and the people who see your work. Getting that
response was exhilarating."

Dutton gets to have that artistic dialogue with hundreds of millions of
people around the globe. He creates doodles, those illustrations and animations on Google’s search
page that celebrate cultural and historic events. He says he has created about 170 of them. Some of
his most popular doodles have included tributes to Disney artist Mary Blair, author Charles Dickens
and Beatles musician John Lennon (an animation set to his song
Imagine).

"Doodles really touch people in a profound way, and makes them laugh, and
creates a human connection between users," says Dutton, who studied illustration at Academy of Art
University in San Francisco.

Because Google says it values the importance of encouraging young
artists, the company last Tuesday launched its latest national Doodle4Google contest for students
18 and younger.

According to Google, "Kids can send in submissions from Jan. 15 to March
22. We’ll select the best 50 doodles — one from each U.S. state — with the help of our celebrity
judges, and announce the state winners on May 2."

The search giant adds: "A public vote (at www.google.com/doodle4google)
will help us pick the national finalists and winner, and we’ll reveal who these are at an awards
ceremony in New York on May 22. The winner’s doodle will appear on Google.com on May 23."

Dutton, who is married to a schoolteacher, says this contest can
encourage young artists. He understands how important that encouragement can be. He says both his
mom and dad were very supportive of him. And then, of course, there was Mr. Briggs, the teacher who
took his sculpted tiger — and helped give him back a professional future in art.

Today, his work is seen by millions. And if you win the Doodle4Google contest, yours will be,
too.